Confederate sympathizer named college prez, students rebel

[TexasTowelie]

Source: MSNBC

The College of Charleston is tearing at the seams as outraged students and alumni protest the selection of its next president – a defender of the Confederacy with a history of championing the Rebel Flag.

The board of trustees’ selection of Republican Lt. Gov. Glenn McConnell, a Civil War re-enactor who for years led the fight to keep the Confederate flag hanging over South Carolina’s capital building, comes just two years after the college embarked on an ambitious campaign to attract more minority students.

Critics say McConnell’s appointment will tarnish the college’s reputation and hinder efforts to diversify the student body, which with just 6% black students has one of the lowest student diversity rates in the state.

Both the student government and faculty Senate have issued unanimous votes of no-confidence in the school’s board of trustees. The board has not budged, insisting it stands by McConnell’s selection.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/slave-state-supporter-named-college-president

[blkmusclmachine]

1. Oh, my.

[Ken Burch]

2. Reminds me of a line I read in "The Onion"

it was from a "Your voices" piece(the one where they always use the same four photos, but give them different names, jobs and opinions each time)and they were discussing the Rebel flag-over-the-SC-statehouse-issue. They put these words as the quote from the black guy)

"If I was a resident of South Carolina, I'd be deeply ashamed...now, what's this about a flag?"

[ProfessorPlum]

22. LOL

thanks for the laugh

[underpants]

40. :-)

[Skittles]

42. LOL

where do they get the pics for those people? they crack me up (are they Onion writers?)

[jberryhill]

3. You know... when they finally got that Japanese soldier out of the jungle....

...they didn't call him a "World War II Re-Enactor"....

[freshwest]

4. Good ol' boys looking after their bud. Guy was a disgrace in office. He'll dumb down the place. n/t

[MADem]

5. Students "rebel" eh?

But seriously folks...who in their convoluted head thought that appointment was a good idea? What student wouldn't be proud to proclaim "I go to DUMBASS UNIVERSITY!" after all....!

I think the students should print up some confederate money, and pay their tuitions with it!!! Save the greenbacks for the application fees for sane colleges and universities!

[alp227]

6. I guess it's ok to be a traitor to the union if it's under the Stars & Bars...

not the hammer and sickle. If America had a House Un-American Activities Committee today, neo-Confederates like this fool would be subpoenaed.

[calimary]

7. Now there is an EXCELLENT comment!

It's fair game to compare the stars 'n' bars to the hammer and sickle, and why stop there? Why not add in the star and crescent for that matter?

Actually, though, if we had a House Un-Americcan Activities Committee today, liberals would be subpoenaed from coast-to-coast. Remember who owns the House of Reps these days. House of Reprehensibles is more like it.

[SheilaT]

8. The south lost the civil war.

It's about time they understood that.

The Confederacy was about slavery, pure and simple. Dressing it up in "states' rights" does not alter that.

I'm old enough to remember the Civil War Centennial, and I recall quite clearly that all of a sudden the narrative changed, and we were now being told that the war wasn't really about slavery, but about something else. The truly weird thing is that I was living in northern New York State, not a part of the Old South at all. But somehow the bullshit about "it wasn't really about slavery" had somehow taken over the whole country.

It was about slavery. And the South was wrong. Pure and simple. And they lost. Rightly so.

So I do not want to hear from anyone that the flag conveys some deep cultural meaning. That deep cultural meaning is about denying basic human rights to others. And that is NOT right.

[7962]

11. I've never seen the losing side in any war celebrate it so much. Anywhere in the world.

And my great-grandfather was IN the war and was wounded. He fought because he was told to. No one in my family was ever higher than a sharecropper back then; no slaves, no property, etc. Yet I still dont understand the big deal about why so many people continue to defend the South completely.
Why do people not see how different the world would be today had the South WON? Would the US have ever been able to achieve greatness? Would the South be more like a 3rd world country? Who would have won the World Wars? SO much to ponder, and usually the outcomes wouldnt be good. The best thing to happen to the South was to LOSE the war.

[Cirque du So-What]

16. Further to your point

would the confederacy have sided with the nazis in WWII? Seems like Hitler was their kind of guy. I realize that mulling over alternate historical scenarios is, for the most part, a waste of time, but, yeah, I believe the world would much different if the confederacy had been allowed to persist.

[bemildred]

18. And we are still paying the price for failing to finish the job of Reconstruction.

And the servitude and war lovers are still losing wars and acting like they won.

[The Magistrate]

26. Hear Hear, Sir!

My sentiments exactly.

[bemildred]

27. Good Morning, Sir. nt

[Hosnon]

29. "The South" isn't some monolithic entity.

There's nothing for "them" to understand. 99.99% of Southerners give the Civil War no more thought than the rest of the country.

[cordelia]

31. This.

[SheilaT]

32. Then that .01% is amazingly vocal.

And they seem to have an awful lot of control over the popular culture and thinking of many who live in the south.

I keep on hoping that the influx of retirees from northern climates would substantially liberalize that part of the country, but it doesn't seem to be happening.

[cordelia]

34. So wrong. So very wrong.

The only time a Southerner - for the most part - thinks about the Civil War is when someone like you accuses us of not letting it go.

Which implies that we're stupid.

eta: Which we do not appreciate.

[SheilaT]

35. Really? Then why are there Confederat flags all over the south?

Why the talk about "Our heritage" as if it had nothing to do with Slavery.

I have all too often had the experience of someone from the deep south defending slavery and making it clear that they don't seem to think the Civil War really settled anything to buy your claim that you all never think about the Civil War.

Ken Burns, the maker of that amazing series about the Civil War, tells of a time shortly after it came out, and he was somewhere in the south addressing a group of people at a church. Someone there asked him if he thought the right side had won the war. He said, Yes, and needed to be escorted out of the church for his safety. That to me sums up the problem about the south and their clinging to their "lost cause".

[TexasTowelie]

39. I've lived in various locations across Texas in my adult life.

The only times that I've seen Confederate flags were at Six Flags over Texas in Arlington, pictures of TEA party rallies, a cemetery site where Confederate soldiers are buried near Brenham, a couple of Dodge Chargers painted to resemble the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard and decals on the back of a pickup truck about every other month. I associate the General Lee replicas and the decal sightings as a mark of rebelliousness more than an association with the Confederacy. However, with all of those instances I don't think that constitutes seeing them all over the South.

In the past couple of years I've actually seen more Lyndon LaRouche signs than Confederate flags.

I don't doubt the accuracy of Ken Burns report. However, when I was a regular church attendee I didn't know anybody that would have asked a question of that nature or make anyone feel threatened. I can only speak for Texas, but in the larger cities there is not a pro-slavery attitude that is prevalent. The racism around the DFW area is directed more towards Muslims than to blacks or Hispanics.

[LanternWaste]

41. I too live in TX, and see confederate flags as decals and stickers in so many places.

I too live in TX (DFW), and see confederate flags as decals and stickers in so many places-- on trucks and cars, in bar and residential windows, co-workers tattoos, etc. I'd be surprised if I was able to go one normal day without seeing less than a handful of them.

[llmart]

44. Here's a good book recommendation for you.....

Sheila T. I know you are an avid reader. Unless you've already read it, I believe you'd love "The Invention of Wings" by Sue Monk Kidd.

Also, I lived in the South for ten years and yes, many Southerners still hate "Yankees". When I moved there another fellow Northerner said to me, "Just remember this. When you first arrive you're referred to as a damned yankee, but after they get to know you and like you, well, then you'll just be a yankee." It was his way of saying no matter how long you live there, you'll never truly be accepted by some Southerners. There were always articles in the newspaper about how they were still fighting the Civil War. Plus you'd hear the stories about how, "Oh, my parents had Negroes working on their tobacco farm, but they were just like family to us."

[SheilaT]

45. I'll have to check it out.

Thanks. I always appreciate book recommendations.

added on edit:

It looks fascinating so I went to my library website to put it on hold. I'm number 97. Wow. They do have 11 copies, so it probably won't take more than a couple of months for me to get it, but still. . . .

[llmart]

46. I got lucky on one of my regular visits to the library.....

and found it on the shelf in the "In Demand" section, so I snatched it up and read it in 5 days. It's very good and based on mostly fact.

[theHandpuppet]

9. Oh, he's a piece of work all right...

Heritage my ass. This guy is a racist piece of shit.

Glenn McConnell Began Selling Segregationist’s Products in Wake of Boycott
By Josh Glasstetter on April 3, 2014
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2014/04/03/glenn-mcconnell-began-selling-segregationists-products-in-wake-of-boycott/

After a segregationist businessman’s products were dropped from major grocery chains over his promotion of slavery, South Carolina Lt. Gov. Glenn McConnell – who was recently selected to head the College of Charleston – went out of his way to sell the man’s products.

Maurice Bessinger, an unrepentant segregationist who ran the Piggie Park chain of barbecue restaurants in South Carolina, sparked a controversy in 2000 when he began flying the Confederate flag over his restaurants – a reaction to the state government removing the flag from the capitol dome. Soon it was discovered that Bessinger was selling pro-slavery materials at his restaurants, including a pamphlet entitled “The Biblical Justification for Slavery.”

Bessinger, who wore a white suit and appeared atop a white horse in promotional materials, had made a name for himself during the Civil Rights era for refusing to integrate his restaurants and leading the National Association for the Preservation of White People. He posted signs at his stores telling African Americans they were not welcome. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually forced him to integrate and his restaurants went back to, more or less, business as usual.

By 2000, South Carolina had changed, but Bessinger hadn’t. According to The State, Bessinger was “distributing pro-slavery audiotapes and gave customers a discount if they bought his literature.” He claimed that slavery in South Carolina was “biblical slavery,” which he argued was more ethical than other forms.... MORE

[theHandpuppet]

10. Check out this photo...

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/03/13/443636/lieutenant-governor-glenn-mcconnell/

[nyabingi]

12. I've never understood...

...neo-Confederates claiming to be patriotic Americans when they idolize and revere people whose goal was to destroy the country. As a southerner, I've even seen homes with flag poles in their yards sporting both the US flag with the Confederate flag waving right under it lol. For these people, the Civil War never ended and they have never gotten over the humiliation of their defeat.

[theHandpuppet]

13. I've never understood the claim it's just "heritage"

As if Southern heritage solely belonged to white people who fought for the Confederacy, not to the millions of black slaves nor the nearly 200,000 Southern Unionists who fought to preserve the Union.

Check this out:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/29/1288313/-Florida-Legislature-Not-Over-Civil-War-Refuses-Monument-for-American-Union-Soldiers

Disgusting!

[blm]

14. Mizz Glenn also shares a large closet in SC with Mizz Lindsey and Andre Bauer.

These men committed themselves to a lifetime of hypocrisy.

[Tom Ripley]

24. Just because Glenn is a lifelong bachelor who owns an antique shop in Charleston, there is no...

wait a minute...nevermind.

[bluecollarjoe]

15. Deep in confederate territory.

I live in the backwoods of Florida where confederate flags are common "yard statements". I've been flying the Union civil war flag (34 stars) for the past few years at the end of my driveway and these ignorant rednecks don't even realize it. As a born white "Southerner" (of Yankee stock), I can attest to the fact that the 'heritage" excuse is just b.s.. I talk and deal with these type people all the time and they go out of their way to make racist comments expecting my agreement. Beware; many are armed to the teeth and some are looking forward to another rebellion against the evil Feds and/or a race war to suppress rioting blacks.

[Baitball Blogger]

17. Yep. Sounds like Florida.

I think I'm in a backwater, but I guess there are different stages. I only hear the racist comments second hand. "You know what he said about his landscaping guys..." That sort of thing.

You should keep a journal and document the things you hear. It might come in handy some day.

[independentpiney]

33. I'm so glad I live in St Pete

There are far fewer confederate flags here, and I hear less racist bull than where I used to live in Ocean County, NJ.

[lostincalifornia]

28. Whether they realize it or not they are obsolete, just like the republican party will be if they do

not move into the modern world

Welcome to DU

[Tom Ripley]

36. +1000

[kemah]

19. Poor Whites also hated slavery for economic reasons.

I live in Texas and when some whites come up with the slogan the South shall rise again. I remind them that if slavery existed today, they would not have a job. Most of those yahoos have little education and have jobs, that plantation owner would buy a slave to do.

[theHandpuppet]

20. I wonder if this story is taught in the Texas schools

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nueces_massacre
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2012/aug/18/hill-country-community-honors-german-immigrants/?print=1
http://www.labordallas.org/hist/hist1865.htm

[TexasTowelie]

23. I didn't know all the details of the account,

but I remember a bit of discussion about it when I took 7th grade Texas history. At the time, I wasn't that interested in history and the textbook didn't have much information. The class was also at the end of the day and was taught by the baseball coach so we were frequently sent to the gym with little supervision or instruction.

[Deuce]

48. Thanks for the links...good info.

[hadrons]

49. Most White Southerns were treated like shit

during the Confederacy ... this is all they got out of fighting for the plantations they had no chance of ever owning:

" target="_blank">

[Blue_Tires]

21. Good to see the backlash

12-15 years ago he would have just slid into office with barely a complaint...

[Hip_Flask]

25. Loved passing through that town...

Female to male ratio was amazing...

Spring time rolls around...

*goes to pack*

[yellowcanine]

30. the student government and faculty Senate have issued unanimous votes of no-confidence

The Board of Trustees will either have to reverse themselves or resign or get fired. Votes of no-confidence are the nuclear option in a university.

[Tom Ripley]

37. Necrofederate

[dbackjon]

38. Students all need to transfer

[BuddhaGirl]

43. The poll on the msnbc page has been freeped!

it needs some DU love!!

[Cha]

47. Kick for rebels with a good cause! thanks TxT!